During 1994, this film-maker Lee Tamahori made one of the biggest first films of that era, operating at full capacity with the gut-wrenching social-realist drama Once Were Warriors. This family represent a working-class Maori family in South Auckland: Temuera Morrison plays the drinking, brawling, boasting alpha-male welfare claimant the father, who comes home from drinking in the pub with his pathetic sycophant mates to terrorise and assault his wife Beth, portrayed by Rena Owen, and their five children. He shows no concern to the future of his older boys who have fallen into gang life and illegal activities, as well as his sensitive daughter Grace, who has talent as a storyteller. One son gets gang tattoos; another is sent to a youth detention where he is partly educated in the ways of Maori culture – the haka and the taiaha warrior spear – and learns self-worth and self-respect. Meanwhile at Jake’s chaotic house, the daughter is assaulted by a repulsive acquaintance “Uncle Bully”; tragedy ensues, and the mother passionately confronts the wretched Jake: “Our people used to be fighters, but unlike you, Jake, they were individuals with honor, dignity; soulful beings …”
Raw Emotion and Skilled Filmmaking
Tamahori let rip with all this intense drama, and landed sledgehammer punches with bar sequences, the home scenes and the gang ritual initiation scenes, directing them with assurance and energy. He created a bold, sincere film with a very 90s touch of edginess. It was a hit with audiences and critics, and – for good or ill – strongly influenced studio heads in the film industry who could see how Tamahori could bring that dynamism and talent to mainstream genre material.
American Films and Diverse Work
In America, Tamahori made the noir thriller Mulholland Falls, about aggressive police officers who ignore procedure, and then a script by Mamet adventure drama The Bear with the actor and Alec Baldwin as two men who journey through the wilderness after their plane crashes. (This moderate movie gained cult status when the producer Art Linson wrote amusingly about the turbulent production of filming with an animal actor in his witty Hollywood book What Just Happened?) Along Came a Spider was a serviceable thriller, and he had another payday filming the sequel in the triple-X franchise XXX State of the Union.
Bond Film and Career Shifts
Yet the peak, or perhaps the low point, of Lee Tamahori’s American work was taking on the 007 film Die Another Day in 2002, with the star; this was the installment mocked for having the worst gadget in 007 history – a cloaked vehicle. What is the point such a car, viewers asked? This car which makes it very hard to remember where you parked it.
Subsequent Projects and Comeback
Following this, the director discovered some more interesting form. His The Devil’s Double in 2011 starred the actor in the twin roles of the dictator's hideous son Uday and also Uday’s decoy double, used to protect the young tyrant-princeling from assassination or kidnapping: this was a punchy, watchable film which sidestepped typical double cliches. In subsequent times, he went back to the subject of indigenous traditions, directing The Convert in 2023, collaborating with Australian critic-turned-screenwriter his partner. Tamahori was an exceptional filmmaker – but it remained his first film, the emotional Once Were Warriors, that was his masterpiece.
